Progress in 2 years: China-Laos railway shows super result

According to the China State Railway Group, the new railroad between China and Laos has shown excellent performance. This 1035-kilometer-long route connects Kunming with Vientiane.

Within Laos, there are 422.4 kilometers of the road, with concentrated destinations in Boten with Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng and other cities, including the capital. What successes have been recorded by the railway company over the past two years, chinadaily writes.

It should be noted that there used to be a 3.5 km long railroad from Laos to Thailand. It delivered only cargo. Now, within two years, it has managed to deliver about 29 million tons of cargo and handle 24.2 million passenger trips, including 3.74 million on the Lao section. In addition, 29.1 million tons of cargo were transported on this road, 6 million of which were cross-border cargo.

Over time, the quality of service has been significantly improved to better meet the needs of passengers: the ability to purchase tickets through applications has been added, and additional ticket offices have been opened in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, and Luang Prabang, a popular tourist destination in the country.

It is noted that 20.46 million passenger trips were made on the Chinese railway section. An average of 51 trains ran daily during this period, with the peak daily number of passenger trips reaching 83 thousand.

At the same time, 3.74 million passenger trips were recorded on a section of the road in Laos over two years. The number of trains running daily increased to 10 from four when rail service began, and the daily peak number of passenger trips reached 10,197.

According to the newspaper, the opportunity to travel from Kunming to Vientiane appeared on April 13. Since then, the level of passenger traffic has reached 95,000 people from 72 countries and regions, and the number of international passenger trips has increased from about 600,000 to 1.1 million monthly.

Thanks to the emergence of this international route, cross-border cargo transportation in the region has significantly improved: from 2 to 14 daily.

New logistics routes were created between Southeast Asia and Europe, and travel time was reduced to about 15 days. In addition, the creation of a new transshipment site has had a significant impact on cargo transportation. Since the opening of the station in Vientiane, which has the same track gauge as Thailand, 101 trains with 3,838 containers have been transported.

The number of tourist routes between Kunming and Vientiane has also increased significantly, contributing to the rapid development of the tourism economy in Xishuangbanna in Yunnan and Luang Prabang in Laos.